"Born in Tokyo and raised in Berkeley, California, the 31-year-old Lyrics Born (a.k.a. Tom Shimura) makes the kind of robust, freewheeling hip-hop that followers of Outkast and Jurassic 5 will find appealing."
Excerpt: "The color lines in pop music are pretty clear. Rock is white; hip-hop is black. It’s cool for an occasional artist to cross the line—like Hendrix or Eminem—as long as the artist’s color or ethnicity isn’t too outside-the-box (Hendrix was a well-educated hippie; Eminem thought he was black). So what do you do if you’re a half Japanese-American, half Italian-American who wants to make underground hip-hop and crossover R&B? If you’re Bay Area MC Lyrics Born, you do whatever you want."